Midterms

I don't know which is more surprising, that I have to take tests again or that the semester is half over. This week is midterm week. I had a psych exam on Tuesday and I have a measurements exam tomorrow. I will confess that it is a bit intimidating taking a test for a program that specializes in testing. I also know I'm in the "big leagues" now because everything is graded on a curve. An honest to God curve. A+ is reserved for only the top. In addition to your score, professors provide you with means, percentile ranks and standard deviations. When I was looking into this program a veteran grad student told me that this was a difficult program and that "everyone is used to being at the top of the class and when we are in class together, we all can't be at the top." She went on to imply that once you become comfortable with this reality and once you realize you don't have to always strive for the top of the class, the happier you will be. Tests are intended to shake out the top from the bottom. We are all graduate students, of course we are prepared for the tests, this is not middle school. To discriminate the top from the bottom, professors pitch verbose and ambiguous questions at you to see what you swing at.

It has been a humbling lesson for all of us to learn. At some point all of us have worked very hard only to be toppled by a B, translation: BARELY AVERAGE. I'm learning not to take A- or B+ personally anymore. It is not a reflection of my ability. It is simply a measurement of my performance on a sampled content domain (that is in preparation for tomorrow's test.) I do my best, I learn what I can, I show what I know to the best of my abilities. I'm not out to set the curves. After all, I'm still going to be paid the same whether I get an A+ or a B+. Mind you, I'm not striving for mediocrity either, I just have perspective and recognize that not all of my learning can be demonstrated on a test. And that is what it is really about.